She would? She’d never been that eager to introduce me to her society cronies before. “That would be lovely, Aunt Alva. Is, er . . .” I assumed my most innocent, nonchalant expression. “Is Consuelo here, too?”
“Well, of course she is. Where else would Consuelo be? Surely not with her father out on that ostentatious yacht of his.”
Funny, Alva hadn’t considered the yacht ostentatious when she’d taken Consuelo on an exhausting European tour all last summer and autumn. Her sudden scowl drew me from the memory, and my stomach clenched in anticipation of one of her quick, wildfire tirades outlining the many sins of her newly ex-husband. She surprised me, however, when her smile returned and her voice dipped lower on a conspiratorial note. “Did Grafton tell you she wasn’t at home?”
I cast a glance over my shoulder to discover the man had shuffled quietly away, probably through the grand dining hall and to the servants’ domains. “He did. Why would he lie?”
“Consuelo . . . hasn’t been feeling at all well lately.”
A surge of alarm went through me. “She’s been ill?”
“Oh, not ill exactly.... Come with me.” She grasped my wrist and whisked me through a doorway into the Gold Room, a sumptuously gilded, Louis XIV–style ballroom whose ornate décor rivaled that of The Breakers’ Great Hall. The Gold Room was situated at the front of the house. Her guests couldn’t glimpse us through the windows here, which essentially belied her reason for overstepping Grafton and admitting me to the house. Here, amid rich carvings and chiseled marble, French silks, Italian brocades, and vibrant porcelain from ancient Chinese dynasties—riches enough to feed several orphanages for several years—she told me of a plan that raised bile to my throat and urged me to rush to Consuelo’s side.
“He should be here in about a week, Emmaline, so you see the urgency.”
I nodded absently, not truly hearing her question as my mind spun with a dozen contrary thoughts. The “he” she spoke of was Charles Richard John Spencer-Churchill, recently dubbed ninth Duke of Marlborough—or Sunny, as his friends apparently called him. Even now his transatlantic steamer headed toward New York, where he would turn north for Newport and officially become engaged to the eighteen-year-old Consuelo.
Aunt Alva hadn’t counted on one small problem: Consuelo was having none of it.
“If anyone can convince her, Emmaline,” Alva said, “it’s you.”
I stepped back as though she’d struck me. “Me? I’m sorry, Aunt Alva, but you cannot imagine I’d approve of a forced marriage. Or that I’d ever step into the middle of a family matter. You know me better than that.”
She took an ominous stride closer, forcing me back another step, and then another. Alva followed my backward course until my calves struck a thronelike side chair. She loomed mere inches away. Her features hardened; her eyes turned icy. A lethal finger rose to point squarely at my heart. “Make no mistake, Emmaline. Consuelo will marry the Duke of Marlborough. There is no other choice in the matter. The only question that remains is will she do so willingly, or will I have to drag her by her hair to the church?”
The breath froze in my lungs and chills traveled my spine. Yet this was nothing new. Alva wasn’t acting out of character with her threats or her sudden vehemence, or with her desire to live vicariously through her daughter. Alva had always intended for Consuelo to marry into minor European nobility, landed gentry at the very least; hence last year’s European cruise. But a duke! I could already hear her, announcing to all of society: Oh, yes, my daughter the duchess . . . What a triumph: every society mother’s fondest ambition. Here was a prize this bull terrier of a woman had sunk her teeth into and would never, ever, ever let go of.
With Alva standing so close, all but threatening to sink her teeth into me as well, I became very afraid, not for myself, but for Consuelo. Because I knew that no matter what I or anyone else did, in the end her mother would prevail. She always had; she always would.
With or without a handful of her daughter’s hair.
In a perverse way, then, Alva was right. The best thing I could do for my cousin was comfort her and help her face her impending marriage bravely. But to do it I would have to disavow everything I believed in, such as a woman’s right to choose her own fate, as I had chosen to do only that morning. To help Consuelo, I’d have to lie to her and do so with a smile.
How I dreaded the role I must play.
“Is she upstairs?” I asked in quiet resignation.
With a victorious spark in her eye, Alva nodded. Her smile returned, but her chin lifted and her nostrils flared in a way no doubt intended to remind me of my place—my lowly place—in the family. “She respects you, Emmaline. Even has a silly notion that you’re better off than any of the rest of us Vanderbilt women. That’s why if you, of all people, tell her this marriage is in her best interests, she’ll believe you.”